Forty Years Later, Apollo Astronauts Look Back on the Lunar Rover

In 1971, two years after Neil Armstrong's small step for man, Apollo astronauts got a new way to explore the moon's surface: The first Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) took its inaugural lunar drive. Last week, Apollo astronauts Charlie Duke and Harrison Schmitt, along with dozens of other LRV vets, gathered for the LRV's 40th anniversary to look back on improvising a replacement fender on the moon and to offer advice to today's rover builders.

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong took his first, tenuous steps on another world. This iconic moment marked the beginning of a new chapter of space exploration, but Armstrong's famous first steps also highlighted the daunting challenge ahead: How to explore the immense surface of the moon when the astronauts had to struggle with every footstep.

This summer marks the 40th anniversary of one of NASA's solutions: The Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV). The rovers were the first land vehicles designed to operate in a low-gravity environment. With them, astronauts were able to explore lunar terrain miles from the landing site, a feat that would not have been possible on foot. On April 1, the 40th anniversary celebration of the LRV program kicked off at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala., not far from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. More than 50 veterans of the program were in attendance, including Apollo astronauts Charlie Duke and Harrison "Jack" Schmitt. "It doesn't feel like 40 years," Apollo 16's Duke says. "It's amazing how time flies, especially when what you're working on is so important."

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The LRVs (affectionately called "moon buggies") revolutionized lunar exploration. The first rover was launched with the Apollo 15 mission and explored 56 miles of the moon in July and August of 1971. More than 400,000 engineers and technicians worked on the LRVs, the first of which was commissioned by Wernher von Braun and had to be designed and built in a mere 17 months. The team had to account for the rover's weight—which would add to the landing module's hover time and thus expend fuel—and the first "moon buggy had to fold in on itself, becoming small enough to fit into a compartment no bigger than the trunk of a station wagon.

At an average speed of about 8 mph, the LRV could cover twice the distance of an astronaut on foot. Special wire-mesh tires were designed to account for the fine, dry soil covering the moon's surface. The battery-powered vehicle was designed to accommodate one or two astronauts, their supplies and the lunar samples collected along the way. The rovers were actually capable of traveling farther, but their ranges were intentionally restricted to within walking distance of the landing module in case a vehicle broke.

With those samples the Apollo astronauts brought back to Earth, scientists began to piece together the early history of the moon and of our planet. And the rover's color camera captured views that many people never dreamed of seeing. As Duke puts it, the rover provided "a treasure trove of information."

Despite the haste involved in building the first LRV, the vehicle performed admirably—with one memorable exception. During Apollo 17 the rover's fender detached during a drive, covering Schmitt, the pilot, with a spray of what he simply calls "moon dust." With the lack of a replacement, the Apollo 17 astronauts and the ground crew back home had to improvise. "We just followed instructions," Schmitt says modestly.

There weren't many raw materials on the moon with which to whip up a DIY solution. The astronauts had some backup materials with them, including duct tape and some extra clamps that were used to attach exterior lights to the lunar module. According to Schmitt, the ground crew back on Earth laid out the same materials on a table and worked up a creative solution and relayed instructions to the Apollo astronauts on building a primitive fender replacement. "Duct tape held the rover together," Schmitt says, smiling, "at least a piece of it."

The ingenuity and dedication by those in the LRV program paved the way for a new generation of rover-builders: The 40th anniversary celebration coincides with this year's Great Moonbuggy Race, an annual event in which high school and college students design, build and race their own human-powered versions of the moon rover. More than 80 teams competed this year, and the students got to attend the LRV veteran recognition ceremony and panel discussion, affording them the rare opportunity to learn about the rover from two of the astronauts who operated it.

Both Duke and Schmitt were all too willing to share advice for student rover designers. Schmitt, the last of the 12 men to walk on the moon, encouraged students not to be discouraged by failures. "Never be afraid to learn from your mistakes."

"Always draw from experience," Duke says. "Keep abreast of new technology—it's light years ahead now," he jokes. "Remember to keep your eyes open and be innovative." Duke logged 265 hours in space by the time he retired from NASA, but he'll never forget the ones he spent riding around on the moon in a rover. "It was the ride of my life."